Companies use ‘deceitful tactics’ to market harmful ultra-processed products with ‘addictive nature,’ city’s suit alleges

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Corporations use ‘deceitful ways’ to market dangerous ultra-processed merchandise with ‘addictive nature,’ metropolis’s go well with alleges

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 4, 2025, 11:20 am CST

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by town of San Francisco alleges that a number of main meals firms used “deceitful ways it inherited from the Huge Tobacco trade” to market dangerous ultra-processed meals and to “aggressively promote these merchandise to kids.”

The go well with, filed in San Francisco superior court docket, alleges that the businesses engaged in misleading and unfair acts that violated California unfair competitors regulation and created a public nuisance, in keeping with a Dec. 2 press launch.

Extremely-processed meals make up greater than 70% of grocery retailer merchandise and greater than half the diets of individuals in america, the go well with mentioned. The “explosion and dramatic enhance” within the merchandise “has coincided with a dramatic enhance within the incidence of weight problems, diabetes, coronary heart illness, cancers and different life-changing persistent sicknesses,” in keeping with the go well with. “There’s a rising and more and more irrefutable physique of proof tying the rise of UPF to those hostile well being results.”

The go well with mentioned the addictive nature of the meals “is a characteristic of UPF, not a bug. UPF producers are tricking us into consuming ourselves to demise.”

The defendants are the Kraft Heinz Co., Mondelez Worldwide Inc., Submit Holdings Inc., the Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., Common Mills Inc., Nestle USA Inc., Kellanova, WK Kellogg Co., Mars Inc. and Conagra Manufacturers.

The go well with seeks an injunction stopping additional misleading advertising and marketing and requiring “affirmative motion to ameliorate the results of their prior false advertising and marketing.” The go well with asks for statewide civil penalties and cash to abate the general public nuisance in San Francisco.

Publications masking the go well with embody Reuters, the Washington Submit, the Related Press and the New York Occasions.

San Francisco is represented by San Francisco Metropolis Legal professional David Chiu, Andrus Anderson, DiCello Levitt, and Morgan & Morgan.

Morgan & Morgan filed a previous go well with towards ultra-processed meals firms on behalf of a Pennsylvania client. The decide overseeing the case, U.S. District Choose Mia Perez of the Jap District of Pennsylvania, tossed the go well with in August, with go away to amend.

Perez mentioned the grievance didn’t present how particular meals precipitated the plaintiff’s Sort 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver illness, in keeping with earlier protection by Reuters. An amended grievance has been filed, the New York Occasions experiences.

Jennifer Pomeranz, a public well being lawyer and an affiliate professor on the Faculty of World Public Well being at New York College, instructed the Washington Submit that San Francisco’s go well with might have higher possibilities of success.

Personal plaintiffs making an attempt to show hurt face extra authorized hurdles than metropolis or state attorneys suing on behalf of the general public, Pomeranz mentioned.

San Francisco’s grievance is “extremely properly researched,” Pomeranz instructed the Washington Submit. “It’s primarily based on the newest science.”

Sarah Gallo, the senior vice chairman of product coverage for the commerce group Client Manufacturers Affiliation, issued a press release to a number of publications that defended the businesses.

“There’s presently no agreed-upon scientific definition of ultra-processed meals, and trying to categorise meals as unhealthy just because they’re processed or demonizing meals by ignoring its full nutrient content material misleads shoppers and exacerbates well being disparities,” Gallo mentioned. “Corporations adhere to the rigorous evidence-based security requirements established by the FDA to ship protected, reasonably priced and handy merchandise that customers depend upon day-after-day.”

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